Deep, Deep Practice

I was talking with my friend Allison the other day, and she had a cool idea I thought I’d pass along. Allison, who’s in her thirties, is an amateur dancer with a group here in Homer. Whenever she can’t catch on to a complicated move — some spin or leap — she heads for the swimming pool and practices it over and over by herself. “It slows me down just enough,” she said. “When I can feel myself doing it, then I can learn it.”

I’m coaching girls’ softball (ages 10,11) this summer — and she’s given me an idea for our first hitting practice: we’ll get a bunch of bats and teach the kids to swing in the pool — standing at shoulder-depth, so they slow down and feel the right motion, the leverage and rotation that’s behind a good swing. At the very least, it’ll be a really fun afternoon.